Norquist headlined conference with CAIR leader

Grover Norquist, perhaps the best-known conservative anti-tax campaigner, was a headliner at an Islamic leadership conference along with the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan branch and the co-author of a report that slanders critics of radical Islam, including Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson.

Norquist, famous for his no-tax-increase pledge, was featured along with CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid and Wajahat Ali, co-author of “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” at the National Leadership Conference in Detroit Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, sponsored by the Arab American Institute.

Last week, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., denounced Norquist from the House floor for his “unsavory” connections, including ties to known terrorist financiers Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian, his support for the Ground Zero mosque and his advocacy for transferring Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil.

“Simply put,” said Wolf, “I believe Mr. Norquist is connected with or has profited from a number of unsavory people and groups out of the mainstream.”

“Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel,” said Wolf

Norquist called Wolf’s speech a “hissy fit” and “a compilation of whack job criticisms,” arguing the congressman is one of only six Republican members of the U.S. House who has refused to sign ATR’s no-tax pledge.

The congressman did not back down from his remarks, however, asserting, “There’s a clear pattern there. You need to look at who he’s associated with.”

One workshop at the Arab American Institute conference, titled “Defeating Hate Legislation: From Arizona Copycats to Sharia,” discussed “the rampant emergence of hate legislation, including the Arizona copycat laws and Sharia bans now in nearly two dozen states across the country.”

CAIR’s Michigan director Walid defended the radical Detroit imam who was killed in October 2009 in a shootout with the FBI, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, points out CAIR critic Andrew Whitehead, director of the website Anti-CAIR

Walid described Abdullah as a benevolent, “very quiet” man who possibly was set up and murdered by the FBI. Whitehead notes, however, Abdullah once told followers that they should not “carry a pistol if you’re going to police. You give them a bullet.”

In his speech to the House last week, Wolf said Norquist “served as a key facilitator” between the White House and convicted terrorist conspirators Sami Al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi.

Wolf pointed out that Norquist’s firm represented Alamoudi, who is serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a terrorist plot. Al-Arian is under house arrest after pleading guilty in 2006 to conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Al-Arian was among the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex in June 2001, Wolf noted. The next month, Al-Arian’s civil liberties group, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases.

Khan now is a member of the board of the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes the largest annual conservative conference in the country, CPAC. Norquist also serves on CPAC’s board and the board of the National Rifle Association. He also is on the advisory board of GOProud, a homosexual group promoting same-sex marriage, open homosexuality in the U.S. military and hate-crimes laws.

Norquist, who is married to Samah Alrayyes, a Palestinian Muslim, has insisted that there is no conflict between Saudi-style Islamic law and the Constitution, calling Islam “completely consistent with the U.S. Constitution and a free and open society.”

Norquist is also behind the Republican candidacy of Imam Afif “David” Ramadan in Virginia’s 87th legislative district. Ramadan is married to the daughter of a Shiite general in the Lebanese intelligence service, Ghanda Abdul Rahman Zoghbi.

Norquist claimed that “some staffer of [Wolf] went onto the racist websites, you know, dug up stuff from 10 years ago.”

“I’m married to a woman who’s Muslim, and it’s sad and it’s disgusting,” Norquist said. “It reflects poorly on him. I think given his district, he’s going to spend a lot of time apologizing for getting into the gutter and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry. I suppose this staffer who got this stuff off websites did as much [checking] as the idiots who put it forward.”

Spencer notes said Norquist’s “influence on the Republican Party is extraordinarily damaging, as it keeps on leading so many to turn a blind eye to the stealth jihad that Norquist continues so energetically to advance.”

“Congressman Wolf deserves congratulations, and the gratitude of every patriot, for having the courage that so many lack, and calling out Norquist on the floor of Congress,” Spencer wrote.

In his response to Wolf, Spencer said Norquist “showed how thoroughly he has mastered the tried-and-true tactic of his Islamic supremacist partners: He cried racism, smearing his opponent, and claiming victim status when his wrongdoing was pointed out, instead of responding with anything substantive.”